Lessons from the Bible: dependence

Why can’t a character survive alone–as much as they might want to? I discovered the answer this morning. I went to take a test at a college I had only been to a few times. The road I needed to use was blocked off; I found another route, but the actual building seemed to be missing. Finally I asked a [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: the driving force

The average group of teenage girls talking about love would giggle about the end of every movie where the guy, after knowing the girl for three weeks, proposes, she accepts and the film ends with a kiss. This, however, was not what happened this weekend. I had been sick for a few weeks (the reason [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: a hero’s choice

The rising of a hero is simply thrusting a hero into a rough situation. In my first book, Seth and Rachel were thrown into Issym. Although they made an immediate choice (to travel with the good guys and to run from the dragon that was hunting them down) this was not a defining decision. They [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: the rising of a hero

Though a story may start generations before the book begins, the rising of the hero is perhaps the most delicate scene to write. Here, authors write, scratch, start over, scratch, etc, time and time again; because they understand the importance of these first scenes. Here the hero is introduced, typically in his natural environment. The reader see his [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: a hero’s early years

We now return to our discussion on a hero. We have covered their births and move on to their early years. Now this varies widely based on an author’s taste. Some writers build entire story lines on something that happens in the hero’s childhood–often even starting the story there. Others reference those years but do [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: birth of a hero

Some heroes are dashingly good-looking men of high birth–princes or knights or wealthy executives. But most heroes that authors write about come from a lowly place. Focusing mostly on fantasy, I would like to talk about the birth of a hero, where the story truly begins whether or not the author starts there. Troubles will [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: Introduction to the life of a Hero

The next several posts will continue in lessons from the Bible, but will focus mainly on the life of a hero from birth to death. This is a broad subject so I want to give you a base for what we will be talking about: Websters Dictionary defines a hero as “A man admired for [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: Jealousy

Jealousy. We all fight it. It begins in competition, turns into rivalry and finally becomes the beast we know of as jealousy. And what does jealousy do? It has different outcomes. If you envy what someone has and do not tame your ugly beast, you may overwork yourself to attain it (if it is within your [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: Fear

Today I am keenly aware that fear is an inky darkness that starts to affect us in ways we do not even see.  Like in an invisible enemy with the strength of a tiger, fear begins to pounce on us in our actions, our attitudes, our thoughts and our relationships. Fear is not simply contained [...]

Read Full Post »

Lessons from the Bible: Animals and Imagining a World

So I accidentally lied about two things: that I would be getting back to blogging and that I was healthy. Little did I know that I only looked better and I fell back into sickness yesterday and am still fighting it today. So I am making up for yesterday’s missing post by blogging today: In most [...]

Read Full Post »